Ep. 101 Creative Takes on Coloring Our World

Sunshine & Stories Episode 101: Creative Takes on Coloring Our World 

Episode Summary: 
The Colorado State Library's Youth and Family Services Team, Kate Brunner and Kate Compton, explore all the different ways they can think of to interpret the upcoming 2025 Collaborative Summer Library Program slogan, “Color Our World” as well as the theme of art as an upcoming summer program theme for Colorado’s public libraries.  

00:00 – Introduction
01:03 – “Color Our World” how?
12:14 – Book and program highlights
14:16 – Closing 

References:
Collaborative Summer Library Program
The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubins
Museum of Bad Art, Boston, MA
Ontarian Librarian: Bad Art Night 2.0
Creative Quest by Questlove
Art Play! By Meredith Magee Donnelly
The Artful Kid: Paint with Bubbles 3 Ways 

Next Drop-in Chat:
Hey Colorado library folks! Join us on August 13, 2024 at 11:00 am to noon Mountain Time for our first online Summer Drop-in Chat. No need to register. Come when you can, stay for as long as you can. See you soon!

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This project is made possible in part by a grant from the US Institute of Museum and Library Service. 

Transcript

Sunshine and Stories podcast transcript for Episode 101

[00:00] [music] 

Kate Compton: You're listening to Sunshine and Stories, a Kate-cast from the Colorado State Library's summer design studio with your hosts,  

Kate Brunner: Kate Brunner 

Kate Compton: And Kate Compton. 

Kate Brunner: Tune in every other week as we explore one summer reading topic. From colorful program ideas to community wide engagement to avoiding burnout, we have got you covered. 

Kate Compton: If you have other questions or want to dive into any topic further, check out Libraries Learn.org for our next live summer drop in chat date. 

[00:42] Kate Compton: Did you know the name Colorado comes from the first Spanish explorers to the region in the 1500s. They saw the red of the Colorado River, and now we are fondly referred to as Colorful Colorado. A very fitting fact for our episode today, as we explore this year's summer reading theme. 

[01:03] Kate Brunner: So our 2025 slogan from the Collaborative Summer Library Program is Color Our World and the general theme is art. But I found myself thinking color our world how? Right because at the first, the first time I heard about this particular theme, I mean my mind went straight to art projects. Right? Fine arts. But maybe we don't want to spend the whole summer finger painting, right? So I was thinking about this general theme of art and what else could that include? When you think about it, Kate, what sort of other ideas might come up for you? 

Kate Compton: Yeah, I started thinking. OK, it's going to be a very messy summer with lots of different art projects. And then I started thinking about summer here in Denver, and it is so colorful between the different festivals and farmers markets, there's always something going on. So I started thinking about dance and how colorful that can make different spaces with not only the costumes, but just the movement themselves as well as the music and how that can really wrap our whole community into a space. And of course, I'm always thinking about food and all of the different colors that can be represented on a plate and the different dishes that you see at different festivals. So the art of cooking, the art of dance, the art of music. 

Kate Brunner: That's amazing. I love that. Yeah, I mean, summer really is full of festivals all over the state, right? So there's an opportunity to take all of that art and color involved in those and bring it into our summer programs, I think. I also thought about craft. There's a fiber arts alliance here down in the Durango area, which is really, really kind of cool. And I think sometimes, you know the phrase is arts and crafts, right? We hear that. But we don't necessarily think of that artistry behind those crafts sometimes. You know, there's fiber arts, there's woodworking, there's metalworking. And then the idea of craft also sort of took me into poetry and writing and theater even too. That there's a craft to that, that there's an art to, you know, writing a poem. There's an art to getting up on stage. So just kind of really trying to think more broadly about the theme in general. 

Kate Compton: Yeah, I love thinking about craft. Maybe a little costuming and the art of fashion? I love hearing every year how every library has an interpreted each of the themes and this theme does lend itself so well to so many different things that I'm excited to see what people come up with. 

Kate Brunner: So I've also been thinking about what about enjoying color out in our world, right, like out in our neighborhoods? There's so much color around us every day. Do we stop and, you know, kind of appreciate the arts that we might be walking by on a regular basis? I think Durango has a public art mural project happening. So there’s new murals popping up in places where they weren't before, and that's been kind of fun to kind of mindfully keep an eye out for. So, just thinking about what art is happening in my neighborhood, you know? What beauty am I noticing, you know, on a regular basis? 

Kate Compton: Yeah, thinking about what's happening in my neighborhood, it's all of the beautiful flowers people are growing. Summer is my favorite time because of all the wildflowers in the mountains. I love being on hikes and then I'm trying to grow vegetables and I think about all the different colors that I hope will be popping up in my garden sometime soon too. 

Kate Brunner: Yeah, it sounds like I should come over for salad or something. Colorful dish. Yeah, I love that. I think there's probably so many other ways to think about this theme, right? To think about enjoying color out in the world and where we find it in our every day. So I'm really looking forward to chatting about this more at our next drop-in session and really see what other folks in other parts of the state are coming up with. What other sorts of fabulous ideas they're thinking about when they think about taking on this theme. 

Kate Brunner: I think the last angle that I really kind of want to highlight here, you know, beyond thinking about art as a very broad category itself. And then also thinking about, you know, enjoying the color that is out in our world, the art that is all around us every day, is also this idea of maybe bringing color into the world, bringing art into the world? I know we're going to talk a lot about possible program ideas in other episodes, but maybe two ideas that I really think I kind of want to highlight today are the idea of service projects and how service projects bring color and art into the community, even if they’re not necessarily hyper art focused service projects. I think you know really anytime we have the opportunity to, you know, be a positive force in the world, to be of service to our community, I think there's opportunity to brighten the world, to bring a little more color to someone's day, you know? And I think that requires us to really think broadly about embracing creating art ourselves and bringing color and art into the world ourselves. 

Kate Compton: Love that idea, Kate. I love the idea that just being a human is an art. And yet I also know there are a lot of us in Library Land. There's a lot of people that are going to come to our programs also will say I'm not an artist. I don't like art. They may shy away from this whole idea. So it gives them a little bit of a buy in, right? If we're doing community projects and mutual aid and things like that, it might allow some people to come that maybe wouldn't have otherwise. 

Kate Brunner: Yeah, I think that's a really important thing for us to think about addressing with a theme like this. This resistance, this is the idea of “But I'm not an artist.” So there's nothing for me in this particular summer program and or how I'm not an artist, how am I going to do this? Right? As we're working in libraries. 

Kate Brunner: So I just want to mention one of my favorite reads in recent, within the last year, about creativity and art and it's Rick Rubins' The Creative Act: A Way of Being. And I think that's just such a great book. You don't have to read it cover to cover. There's just little tidbits in there. You can just open it up and read a little bit. But it is so encouraging I think, for just thinking about yeah, life and moving through life as a creative act itself and as the opportunity to create art every day with one's life in small ways as well as in, you know, a five foot by three foot canvas and a set of acrylic paints, right? So I just think that I really recommend that if anybody's feeling anxious about this theme this year, pick up a copy of that book. See if your library has it on the shelf and just check it out, cuz you might find it inspiring and maybe a little encouraging. 

Kate Compton: I love that idea of looking to those in our community also that are being able to be playful and maybe it's our littlest library folks that are embracing kind of this joy in art and just the process of playing and being messy. And delighting in that as opposed to, it's got to be this perfect masterpiece. We're not looking for the next Mona Lisa. We're just looking to enjoy and play in in this theme. 

Kate Brunner: Yeah. I mean, how much do we need that right? Like how much do I need that as a grown up? I think all ages, you know, teens, adults are, you know, just watching a young child finger paint with abandoned, we're back to finger painting, right? But is so much fun really stepping into that. Can we do that? Can we go to that place? Can we encourage teens to go to that place? Can we encourage our fellow adults to go to that place? Because really how often do we get the opportunity to be beginners in our everyday lives? To play, to feel like we can experiment freely with new materials. And really just, yeah, that delight piece. I love that word in particular, I'm kind of keying in on that word because can we even as adults delight in making a mess? 

Kate Brunner: So speaking of making messes, I love this concept of bad art I don't know if you've heard of this, but Christy Moran, our Adult Services Senior Consultant kind of introduced me to this concept of officially Bad Art. Capital B Capital A, right? And I started poking around. And did you know there is a museum for bad art in Boston? And their tagline is "Art too bad to be ignored." 

Kate Compton: I did not. Kate. I'm surprised they haven't contacted me for commissions of any of my art pieces. 

Kate Brunner: [laughs] Right? So I just love this concept because even just calling it that right sort of gives us permission you know? We don't have to create something perfect. We actually could create bad art that could hang in a museum, right? Cuz there's a place for that. Which I just think is really encouraging and as for what this could like look like in the library? I came across one really great example on the Ontario Librarian blog and she put together a program called Bad Art Night. She's done it a couple times now and I love it because she talks about how hosting Bad Art Night in the library gives people, and this is a quote, "the opportunity to be wildly creative, without any pressure to make something good.” 

Kate Brunner: And I just love that idea of being wildly creative. We will link to that blog post in the show notes if anyone else wants to take a look and see the program that that she put together in particular. But hopefully this idea will sort of help you think about how to be wildly creative this summer and really embrace that and encourage your community to be wildly creative too. 

Kate Brunner: So we have covered a lot of wildly creative territory today. I think we started talking about how we can think about this theme. We've talked about looking around our world and also ways we could bring more color into the world without judging ourselves about how we're doing that and everything from creating playful messes to creating awesomely bad art. So any last thoughts today, Kate, on this particular topic we're exploring today? 

Kate Compton: I'm just wildly excited to see how creative everyone is going to be. I'm excited to hear things in the drop-in sessions, but also just to see what people come up with. 

[12:14] Kate Brunner: Before we wrap up this episode, we've got a couple of book recommendations related to today's topic that we wanted to share with you. Our first recommendation is Creative Quest by Questlove. This recommendation was shared with us by Julia Torres at Denver Public Library, who told us she particularly loves utilizing this title with teens. It also looks like an amazing option for adults as well. Now that I've had a chance to check it out. This book is full of stories about how to live, what Questlove calls your best creative life. And I also want to add my own enthusiastic endorsement of the audiobook for this one, which I am enjoying via hoopla. Thank you, Durango Public Library, for that. It's read by the author and several other creative voices, and it includes original music from Questlove and members of The Roots. So it's a really great book for expanding our perspective on the theme of art. And I really want to thank Julia for putting this one on my own personal TBR. 

Kate Brunner: Our other recommendation comes from Tallie Gray at Grand County Library District, and she's recommended Art Play by Meredith McGee Donnelly. This book is full of all sorts of playful preschooler friendly activities, but I also want to be sure to note that many, many of these activities such as drip, painting and monochromatic collage projects could easily be scaled up or down for all ages, including adults. 

Kate Brunner: We've also got a quick inspirational highlight for you, celebrating the way messy, playful art is already happening in Colorado libraries. Today's idea comes from Bree Vegas at Estes Valley Library and Janice Rogers at Ridgway Library District. Their communities have both gotten to enjoy different bubble painting programs, which sounds like a lot of fun. Janice says she takes her bubble painting activities outdoors. If you've never dabbled in bubble painting and want to see some examples, we've got a beautiful photo from Ridgeway and also a link to a bubble painting tutorial from the Artful Kid blog in our show notes. 

[14:16] Kate Brunner: That's our Kate cast for today, y’all but we hope you'll join the upcoming community drop in discussion. 

Kate Compton: We're hosting these discussions all year long. All Colorado library professionals involved in summer programming are welcome. No need to register, stay for the full hour or just pop in to say hi to colleagues across the state. Details for the next drop-in session can be found in the show notes for this episode and on Libraries Learn.org the Colorado State Library’s continuing education calendar and archive. 

Kate Brunner: We'd like to say thank you to all the Colorado library professionals who shared book recommendations, program successes and other artful ideas with us as we were designing this year's podcast. This project is also made possible by a grant from the US Institute for Museum and Library Services. 

Kate Compton: Thanks for joining us and we'll catch you next time. 

[15:07] [music]